Talking about Noble Books
Good afternoon Close Readers,
Last week, in the debut edition of our mailbag email, I answered a question about how we go about choosing the books for the Podcast. And I explained that I generally try to get a sense of what books are being discussed on the Facebook page, that I try to mix up genres and eras, and that I try to make sure that women authors get decent representation. All of that is true, but I have been thinking about this question a lot since I answered it initially. It’s been stuck in my head. And I think the answer I gave is incomplete.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there is also something intangible that guides me. Something about the characters that I lean toward, the kind of prose I tend to choose. Given that I have never consciously thought about it, I suspect it’s instinctive as if there is a desire deep within me to read books of a certain nature, at least with this particular crew.
I have always known that when I settle on a book for the show I am asking you to trust me, and I am aware that you have impeccable taste and demanding predilections. That’s why this community is so delightful and it’s why I like to ask around and get nominations and votes and maybe even the opinion of people worth trusting. I know you have limited time to read, let alone listen to podcasts, and I know there are many, many, many, many alternatives, so I try to be considerate. I know there’s no accounting for taste, of course, and that’s fine, but nonetheless I do my best to choose books that are truly worthy of the amount of attention we are going to collectively give them.
And I realized last night that there is a word that sums up what I’m looking for in these books (that we are all looking for, I suspect). Nobility. I think that’s it. I think I am looking for books that are noble. That doesn’t mean they need to be about noble people all the time (and they are rarely actually about The Nobility), but the books that we tend to identify as worth loving so often have a noble spirit about them. There is nobility in the ideas they present, in the sentences, in the way characters grow and change (or don’t), and in the manner that the stories are told (even when things seem bleakest).
Nobility is more than chivalry or courage or posture. It’s vaguer than that, more abstract. It’s harder to identify and quantify. But I think sometimes you feel it when you see it. You know it in your gut. We can tell instinctively if a person or a work of art has any nobility in it. It slippery, but it’s a worthy target.
On a whim, I punched “nobility” into thesaurus.com and these are some of the words that came up: “dignity,” “generosity,” “grandeur,” “virtue.” (Also “patricians,” “peerage,” and “elite” but we can skip those for now). And for “noble” you find words like “benevolent” and “charitable” and “gracious.” I love the idea that books can be dignified or gracious or charitable. We talk about books like friends, so why not? Certainly we have relationships with them, and they often play the part. So why not seek out books that have those characteristics.
That doesn’t mean they’re not rough around the edges or about difficult things or complicated. A book can be both challenging and benevolent at the same time, right? In fact, sometimes a book’s dignity comes in the way it presents difficult things in an appropriate way. That’s why we close read . . .
I’m sure that some of the books we have read on this podcast over the last four years have missed the mark, but I love the idea that this is a standard for choices moving forward. And I guess it’s a standard for our conversations as well, now that I think about it. Let’s hope we live up to it.
Speaking of noble things: I am confident that The Rector of Justin is a noble book and I’m looking forward to discussing it with Matt Bianco and Sarah-Jane Bentley, our newest contributor. If you’ve been listening to The Play’s the Thing then you already know her. She’s great. And she teaches at Eton College in England, so she has plenty of perspective on the all-boys-school environment. We will discuss the first five chapters soon.
Meanwhile, Tim and Heidi will be diving into The Tempest post-haste, so be sure to subscribe to that show.
A few other things you should know about:
We have a new podcast with Joshua Gibbs, called Proverbial, in which he will be contemplating a different proverb each week. The first two episodes are up now. It’s amazing and you should subscribe.
We also have a new book out: The Lawgivers, a Plutarch translation from David Hicks and his brother, Scot. We are really excited and proud of this book and hope you’ll check it out. It’s a modern translation, but it’s very attentive to the original language, and it includes plenty of notes and illustrations and maps and the like.
As always, thanks for reading and thanks for listening and happy reading.
Cheers,
David and the CR Crew